Mostly in these cases there is a process of mitigation with all parties and concerns. The powers that be tend to be stubborn and heavy handed. They feel that their rule is threatened and with that, the profits exploiting the area and the people who live there. The powers that be, not the forest service and departments that are put in the middle of the power struggle.
We had our controversy here with the pygmy owl. There were only 33 left, apparently a subspecies population. We could build houses, but construction was limited at certain times of the year for the mating. The owners of large tracks of land were the angry ones. We were taking the 4.5 acre zoning and leaving it to 3.3 acre homesites. There is then less profit than to blade off the place for shopping centers, etc. The vast majority of people around here didn't want their lifestyles and the precious limited miracle of this desert, turned into shopping malls and track houses. We felt a kinship to the owls, both of our lifestyles were endangered.
This didn't effect existing golf courses, nor anyone's back yards. That just doesn't happen, except in the propaganda that big money sticks into the media and lobbying. It is big money and influence claiming to be protecting the little guy, when all along the little guys are little effected.
There was an initiative to impede urban sprawl encouraging infill envelopment and renovation of neighborhoods in town. The developer groups spent $25 million dollars in a county of one million claiming that "it goes too far," using examples of family ranchers and threats to people's jobs. A good craftsman earns much more remodeling and constructing single homes than being paid by a big out of state companies to slap up boxes. The measure was eventually narrowly defeated. This is how it works.
By the way, the gila monster is endangered in their natural habitat, but they are a nuisance in some historic parts of town living under houses.
When that which is precious is gone, it is gone forever. That's a part of my naturism. I look to the unspoiled and marvel in it like nothing else. I've watched my naturism being gobbled up all of my life because of the steady processes of greed and ignorance.
I'm not particularly intimate with prairie dogs lifestyles, but I have read enough to see that they won't last, if they are not allowed a sustainable spot to live and I know that other species numbers are down who eat them. I know that the Cattlemen's Association has been brutally self centered and ham handed for going on 125 years. It is simply big business disguised hiding behind the family ranchers. The same is true, and I am certain of this from years of first hand experience and committee work, that builder's associations and speculators are the same way. The Pacific Legal Foundation has always been an organization that claims to defend people's rights. It is actually funded by a group of very wealthy pigs who are out to bust collective bargaining and unions. These are the same industrialist that use it in order to go back to a world that pollutes and destroys with impunity, hiding behind property rights.
We all need places to be natural, to know and experience actual nature and our nature amongst that. I tend to identify with the prairie dogs. I know that 3000 prairie dogs don't take up as much space as I need. It does sound bizarre to me that there is not enough room in the vastness (it is huge) of Utah for a few prairie dogs, that they would be threatening people's backyards and golf courses.
The reason that their numbers are down is habitat destruction to a point, but state wide, there has been an ongoing eradication because their towns undermine cattle's foot steps. Not the native species, just the cattle. This is where the money for lawsuits comes from. It wasn't the suburbanites that made them endangered, but the huge, out of state, meat producers use of extermination. Why would that be ignored in this article and some small spot like threatening somebodies backyard be mentioned? It is because the press is fed these lies and it makes people feel threatened. The definition of common propaganda.
Have you ever just sat and watched prairie dog towns? I have at the Sonoran Desert Museum, a zoo. They are amazing, more fun than monkeys. I'd like to watch a town while I'm naked sometime, the sun and prairie breeze on my back.
Jbee
